


Gathering In

by Vashti (tvashti)



Series: Many Mothers' [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: August 2019 TwistedShorts Ficathon, Canon-Typical Violence, Community: twistedshorts, Gen, Non-Graphic Violence, Women Being Awesome, some proofreading we die liek mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22058641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvashti/pseuds/Vashti
Summary: They come roaring out of the smoke and sand, but who they were there for--the wastelands, Max, or themselves--Max couldn't say.
Series: Many Mothers' [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1587670
Kudos: 4
Collections: TwistedShorts





	Gathering In

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the August 2019 TwistedShorts FAD over on livejournal. It’s been revised for clarity, but it’s mostly unchanged. Like, seriously, this one is virtually unchanged.

Max took a breath and fired.

Took another breath and fired.

Took another breath and fired.

Took another breath and fired.

Turned, breathed, fired.

Dropped the empty shotgun hot in his hands and reached for the second, already loaded on the seat beside him.

Breathed. Fired.

Breathed. Fired. 

Turned. Fired. Breathed. Fired. Turned. Breathed. Fired. 

New gun.

Fired. Fired. Fired. 

Opened his mouth to breath--to scream--

But it wasn’t his voice he heard. The ululating war cry he heard carried on the hot wind didn’t come from his throat. Couldn’t have. The last time he’d heard a sound like this, it had been on the Fury Road, a hundred days or more behind him.

For half a breath he thought it might be Furiosa. Then the thought blew away with the wind-born sand. She and the Widows and the Old Women had a Citadel to subdue, and a Green Place to rebuild. 

Max’s hands scrambled about in the seat beside him, feeling for ammo for the shot gun or any of the extra guns. Whichever his hands landed on first. The wasteland rats pinning him down wouldn’t be distracted for long. And it might be backup that was coming.

Max scanned the horizon, and reloaded. Breathed in time with the pulsing fires of burning wasteland rigs, and reloaded. Watched the newcomers come roaring in, and reloaded. Scanned them from his hidey-hole, gun ready...and waited.

Not for long. War cries still rising from their throats, the newcomers--all women like in Furiosa’s Green Place--leapt off their rigs and charged the wastelanders.

Shock almost made Max drop his shotgun. Their rigs were small and light and fast—more frame than vehicle. They maneuvered well. They drove with purpose. Who was stupid enough to get _out_ of their rig to fight on the sand? Against guns? And crazy wastelanders? Some of them lancers?

Max’s own weapon was up again in seconds. Once the women were torn to shreds, the wastelanders would come back for him. If he was lucky, raiding the women’s rigs would distract them for a few minutes. It might be enough time to scarper down from his hidey-hole, disengage the kill switch on his own ride and get back on the road.

But it wasn’t the women that were going down. Armed with only their melee weapons and their bare hands, moving under their own power, it should have been a slaughter. And it was. The sand turned dark with blood and ichor. Smoke from burning rigs nearly blocked out the sun. Not so much that he couldn’t see the women advancing on his position. 

He fired a warning shot. They’d taken out the wasteland rats, and for that he was grateful, but not enough to roll over for them. 

Instead of rushing him as they probably should have, the women circled each other in a tight knot. The roaring fires and billowing smoke muffled their conversation and partially hid them from view. Max kept watching anyway. Watching and breathing.

Watching and breathing as the women broke ranks, their circle opening to allow one woman to come forward.

Max’s eyes flit between the one woman and the many women. As she came closer, though, it became hard to target both. He chose her. His eyes would notice if they began to rush him, even if he wasn’t giving them all his full attention. 

Even from his hidey hole--a crag in the cliff face someone had supplied with seats and a repurposed door that had come from rounded-edged rig--Max could see that she was tiny. Tiny and brown like Toast, hair bright as old new pennies like Capable.

“You Max the Fool?”

Sure confidence like the Dag.

“Who’s askin’?” Not many people left that knew his name. None alive, at least. 

Except in the Green Place.

“Our Mother sent us to fetch you.”

Max felt his eyebrows shoot up. Had Furiosa and the Widows alreadhy remade the Citadel into their Green Place? The old ones who had survived, the Vuvalini, had the knowledge. And the grit if they’d lasted so long. 

“Been lookin’ for you for ages,” she continued. “Shoulda took Furiosa’s advice all along.”

“What was that?” Max shouted down.

”‘Find a fight that looks absolutely mad and somewhere’ll be that fool, Max.’”

Well, if that wasn’t an open invitation. 

Still. It wasn’t in Max to just give over. He waited. Wrestling silently with the decision to expose himself. The brown-skinned redhead sat down in the sand. Behind her, the other women finally wandered off--some to their rigs, others to raid or finish off the wastelander machines.

The normalness of it all bothered Max more than the woman did. “Just gonna sit?” he called out.

“You comin’ down then?” She straightened. “Or ya need me to come up an’ help pack up a bit?”

Max scowled. Growled a little.

“Guess not then.” So she slumped again, eventually sinking down to one elbow. The other women started to bring her odds and ends, but they spoke too low for him to tell if they were showing off or asking questions about their finds. 

Max scowled again, this time at himself. Women were not...appreciated. Not anymore. Before Furiosa and her Many Mothers, Max had never heard of a tribe of them living independent and good. They were used up like every other wastelander, or bartered like goods, or hidden in tightly locked boxes like the Widows, they were fodder for scavs or worse. Yet here was evidence of it. Daughters of the new Green Place.

Max pushed open the door over his hidey-hole. The sound brought every head up, but only the redhead moved towards him. The rest went back to whatever they had been doing. “Y’good? Don’t need help, then?”

“Good.” He gave her a sharp nod as he navigated the way down--not as easy as up--with a bag across his chest, another in hand, and his bum knee making it all the more precarious. She didn’t offer her help again. He appreciated it. 

Once he was down, though, she did reach for the bag. It had the guns and the ammo, though, so he slung the bag across his back over his head. She stepped into it so that it went over her head and over her shoulders in the same swing like it was a move they’d practiced for over a thousand days. When she looked up she was grinning.

“The Mother’ll be so pleased.”

“How... How is.... Furiosa? The Wives. Widows.”

“Sisters,” she said, then shrugged. “They’re all alright, I guess. Looked good ‘for all’a us was sent out.”

“She’s called the Mother now?”

The woman frowned at him. At his expectant look, she said, “Who? Furiosa?”

Max grunted. 

“Furiosa?” She laughed in shocked surprise. “She’s not even 10,000 days old. Honored Furiosa is, but the Mother?” She laughed in earnest. “Can’t wait to see the look on both their faces when you says that to’em.”

She turned and walked away. Max watched her go. She turned, and the hands on her hips reminded him more of Toast than the brown of her skin. “You coming, or’m I telling the Mother you’re out.”

He should. He should tell this crazy Green Place warrior that he’d had enough of strangers and strange women. He had enough of that in his dreams and waking nightmares. There was a reason he’d walked away from Furiosa and the Wido--Sisters. There was a reason he was in the wastes, even with the scavs and the wasteland rats. There was a reason.

With a grunt, Max hoisted the bag with the guns and the ammo over his shoulder and followed the woman. 

She was just another woman. Just another Vuvalini. And Furiosa wouldn’t have sent for him if she didn’t need him. 

The brown-skinned redhead’s smile was purely her own as she fell into step beside him.

“Know my name,” Max said. “What do I call you?”

“For now, Slayer.”

Fin[ite]

**Author's Note:**

> Noooo idea what inspired this one. And then it, like, kept going. Without me! I had a vague plan, and it kept going wherever it wanted to without me. 
> 
> What am I talking about, you wonder? You'll see in the next 3 stories. All written during the 2019 FAD, so they're done, just in need of revising.


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